This disclosure relates to a process for fabricating an integrated loudspeaker diaphragm and suspension, and the resulting product.
Prior art use of MEMS techniques to create electroacoustic transducers (loudspeakers or microphones) generally attempt to form the entire transducer in the MEMS package—that is, both the diaphragm that radiates or is moved by sound and the voice-coil or other electro-mechanical transducer that moves or senses movement of the diaphragm are formed in or on a single silicon or other semiconductor substrate. See, for example, U.S. Patent Application 2013/0156253. Conventional loudspeakers, on the other hand, have numerous discrete parts, including, in a typical example, a diaphragm or other sound-radiating surface, a suspension, a housing, and a voice coil.